


Hunger

by BuddyTheMeanPeacock



Series: The Crest of Riegan [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Felix doesn't like the Crest of Riegan, Gen, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), disturbing imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuddyTheMeanPeacock/pseuds/BuddyTheMeanPeacock
Summary: Felix reminisces about the time he saw the Crest of Riegan in action.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Claude von Riegan
Series: The Crest of Riegan [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1563514
Comments: 4
Kudos: 78





	Hunger

_It is night time. The crescent moon hangs in the cloudless sky, illuminating the glowing, grassy meadow below it. The moonlight dances with the pale green light hovering in the air._

_Bodies litter the ground._

_Men and women, youthful and aged, they spot the earth, emitting rasping breaths from their choked throats, their bodies reeking of rot and ashen with the mark of death. He lays with them, his limbs made of lead and unmoving despite his commands, fighting the lull of the wretched light; he will not lose this battle. His skin will not become gray. He eyes will not become glazed. He will not join in the chorus of dying. He will not join the cold waltz of moonlight and specters._

_He hears footsteps disturb the grass._

_He cannot move. He cannot draw his sword. He is powerless, a rat caught within the trap, waiting for the cat to play with it before ending its life. He turns his head and glares; he will not show fear. Not here. Not ever._

_A figure approaches, his lumbering stride imparting new steps in the lights' dance as they sway to move into his body. He sees the man's path behind his footfalls, his trail of red against green. He sees the man's axe, dragging along the dirt, honed so sharp as to cut a maiden's fine hair._

_The man stops before him. He sees the man covered in flickering wounds, the light flowing into one and ridding the man of its ugly presence before a new one appears from incorporeal phantoms striking his body, going on in an endless dance. The man is slouched, wide-eyed and slacked jawed, a mere step above the corpses that surround them as he looks down upon him with the desperate gaze of a starving devil._

_The man raises his axe._

_He tenses, his being overflowing with emotion too intense and acute to have a name fit to describe it. His body refuses to act, accepting its fate before his mind and will. He stares defiantly at the man. If he is to die like this, powerless and pathetic, then he will have his last moments be that of what little strength he can muster. He will not grovel, nor beg for life._

_The axe swings down-_

Felix jumps awake.

He sits up from his bed, cradling his head with one hand as he waits for the tingling across his back to fade. He's no stranger to dreams where he is killed- one of the many gifts the boar has given him since the rebellion. He knows he made no sound during his restless sleep.

This dream was different, however. The cause of it had nothing to do with the boar, or Duscur, unlike the ones that have plagued him for nearly a decade. This one is new, and he knew the exact cause of it.

Claude von Riegan.

Felix closed his eyes and rubbed his face into his hand. That man, their tactician and leader while the boar gorges on Imperial blood, has always rubbed him the wrong way. His charm, his intellect, his schemes; it seemed no matter how much people distrusted him- and oh, did they distrust him- they still followed along with what he told them, like dolls forced to dance to the whims of their owner. Felix loathed it with all of his being, but he could not argue against the results Claude delivered. 

The battle, barely a week old and a mere bandit hunting, has changed his view. Before, Claude was merely intimidating, his talent with words, people and strategy a force to be wary of.

Now he was dangerous.

His fingers curled in revulsion at the memory. He had ran through the forest, searching for where the injured tactician could have foolishly gone with his deep wound. He had sprinted until he broke into a meadow, clear to the night sky and revealing two men. 

One had been on the ground, a bandit with a gash down the leg that rendered him useless in battle. He likely received the wound from one of their own, and decided to retreat in an attempt to save his own life.

The other was Claude.

He had loomed over the man on the ground, bleeding heavily from the spear wound to the abdomen that was meant for Felix after he had broken formation to chase bandits that had tried to sneak around them. It should have been incapacitating, and it tricked Felix into believing Claude would be unable to defend himself against the bandit that charged them. He had fought the bandit, Claude behind him, and he thought he would stay there until Felix could finish. 

There Claude had been, however, standing before the injured pillager, bow discarded in favor of the axe that was raised above his head ready to deliver the killing blow under the shine of two crescent moons. Felix had arrived at the perfect moment, right before Claude swung down, ignoring the bandit's begging pleas. He caught a glimpse of his face.

The boar relished in taking the lives of the rebels, he remembered thinking. He fought like a glutton, insatiable as he ran through man after man after man. This was different- this was _hunger,_ a man famished, looking for one morsel of food and lunging for it with the single-minded focus of a dying beggar.

The axe struck the man, and Felix watched Claude be fed.

A disgusting light had escaped the bandit, with a groaning croak following. Felix stood there, wide-eyed, as it coated Claude in its sickening glow. His wound had stitched itself back closed, not entirely healed but leagues from the killing wound it was meant to be, and he straightened, his gaze landing directly on Felix.

Just moments ago Claude's eyes had been glazed over in pain, his body helpless to do anything but wallow in agony. Then he was there, verdant eyes focused on Felix, and he felt as though he were a mouse caught in the gaze of a starving hawk.

Felix had looked away.

He scoffed and threw the sheets off his body as he stalked out of the room. It was barely morning, the sun only just in the sky, but Felix didn't care. He needed the image of those hungry eyes drilled out of his skull, right now.

He heard the talk, heard the names Claude was called for his prowess on the field. The Master Tactician was the most famous.

He much preferred the other, more fitting title.

The Strategizing Demon.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, definitely am of the opinion that Felix would be about as understanding about (this series' interpretation of) the Riegan Crest as he is about anything else remotely unsettling- that is, not at all rip
> 
> Fun fact, in the Japanese version of 3H Claude actually is referred to as something like the Strategizing Demon! I forget exactly what the translation was but it basically referred to his ability to strategize as inhumanly good. Just that, uh, Felix has a different meaning when he says it lol
> 
> But yeah, this series is real fun! Might even be open to having prompts suggested for it haha


End file.
